-
Credentials and Professional Tenure
Chomsky achieved his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1955, and after a number of years working for the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) he became a Professor of Modern Language and Linguistics in 1961. He continues to be affiliated with MIT and began working for the University of Arizona's linguistics department in 2017. -
Linguistic Theories and formal publication
In the late 1950s, Chomsky formulated his own theory about the syntax of language (the arrangement of words that make intelligible sentences). It includes the concept of generative grammar and the idea of "I-language". Language needs to come intentionally and internally from an individual (i.e., I feel sad, instead of you make me feel sad).
His theory was published by MIT as Aspects of the Theory of Syntax contributing greatly to socio-philosophy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVXLo9gJq-U -
Political Activism
In 1967 Chomsky published The responsibility of intellectuals, a critique of US Foreign Policy and the Vietnam War. He would continue to shift his focus from academia to political science and philosophies of governance. He would be targeted by the Nixon administration, black-listed from non-scholastic publishing companies, and labeled (at best) a conspiracy theorist and (at worst) a terrorist. By Chomsky's self-assessment, he is a socialist-anarchist. -
The Faurisson Affair
Robert Faurisson published a book titled memoire en defense that Chomsky wrote a forward for. It prefaced the contents of the book with an exclamation of freedom of speech, particularly in the face of government oppression. The French had laws criminalizing Holocaust denial, and within the book were assertions that the gas chambers did not exist. This damaged Chomsky's reputation, even though France would eventually repeal the criminalization of Holocaust denial.